Thoughts from a Conservative point of view in regards to technology

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I’ve read several places that President Obama is open to the idea of investigating and potentially prosecuting members of the Bush’ cabinet that authorized the use of torture at Gitmo and other places. By doing so we are crippling our intelligence community and also crippling those who server for the President.
Imagine the precedent this sets. One President disagrees with the policies of the former President, so he launches an investigation of his/her staff. Pretty soon, no one is willing to advise the President on anything for fear of being investigated and vilified.

The Wall Street Journal has a very interesting editorial on what the memos recently released by Obama administration state about the torture techniques used by the CIA and others at Gitmo.

So what was waterboarding from the article:

The memos are also revealing about the practice of “waterboarding,” about which there has been so much speculative rage from the program’s opponents. The practice, used on only three individuals, involved covering the nose and mouth with a cloth and pouring water over the cloth to create a drowning sensation.

And the article continues on that the memos state the technique could only be used for about 40 seconds.

Remember the article from the International Red Cross about the United States “walling” terriorists by slaming them into a wall:

An Aug. 1, 2002, memo describes the practice of “walling” — recently revealed in a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which suggested that detainees wore a “collar” used to “forcefully bang the head and body against the wall” before and during interrogation. In fact, detainees were placed with their backs to a “flexible false wall,” designed to avoid inflicting painful injury. Their shoulder blades — not head — were the point of contact, and the “collar” was used not to give additional force to a blow, but further to protect the neck.

Wow imaging that, we were actually protecting the neck, not injure the neck. If these points are true, where is the Red Cross’s apology for spreading false stories? Where is the rest of the people who spread these tales apologies? I won’t hold my breath waiting on these.

In fact as the article contiues:

All of these interrogation methods have been adapted from the U.S. military’s own Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (or SERE) training program, and have been used for years on thousands of American service members with the full knowledge of Congress. This has created a large body of information about the effect of these techniques, on which the CIA was able to draw in assessing the likely impact on the detainees and ensuring that no severe pain or long term psychological impact would result.

So do we torture our own troops when we submit them to the SERE training? And these things happen with full knowledge of Congress? Imagine that…..